Full Pundit: The long, sad shadow of Dalton McGuinty

Kathleen Wynne and the long, sad shadow of Dalton McGuinty

WEEKEND ROUNDUP

Plus ça change…Ontario has a gay female Premier. Who is suddenly in a whole heap of trouble.

Svend Robinson, writing in TheGlobe and Mail, unearths an astonishing quote from a 1988 column in said august organ commenting on his coming out as homosexual: “There, in the sunshine of Stanley Park, smack in the heart of righteous B.C., traipses Justice Minister Svend Robinson, hand in hand with his male lover. The totem poles would droop in embarrassment. Is Canada ready for this? ” (It really is pretty fantastic how far a society can come in 25 years.) Back in the present, Robinson thinks Kathleen Wynne’s victory on Saturday “sends out a tremendous signal of hope and empowerment to those young lesbians and gay men across Ontario and beyond, especially those living in small rural communities who feel isolated and alone.” (Tabatha Southey, writing in the Globe, eloquently makes a similar point about Barack Obama’s LGBT-positive inauguration speech.) Mind you, Wynne was only elected Premier by her party. It would be a shame if the Liberals have their backsides handed to them by the electorate, as they should and must, and this was interpreted (absent any evidence) as a rejection of Wynne’s sexuality.

It is also true, as Postmedia’s Andrew Coyne notes, that Wynne’s sexuality had a bizarrely high profile during the campaign — not least thanks to the Sandra Pupatello-endorsing Toronto Star and its editorialists and columnists, of all people. And the question they raised was straight out of 1988: Will rural folk really vote for … (whisper it) a gay? “Wynne’s decision to confront the issue (if it can be called that) in her well-received speech to the convention must be counted as one of the more dramatic moments in Canadian political history,” Coyne writes; “the open willingness of so many in the party to disqualify her on that basis one of the ugliest.”

The Ottawa Citizen‘s Kate Heartfield, last week: “If Wynne does win … I’m sure even those Liberals who were worried about her ‘electability’ will crow about how their party gave Ontario its first openly gay premier. I expect a Star editorial celebrating the achievement.” The Star‘seditorialists, on Sunday: “Wynne is making history as the first woman, and the first openly gay person, to serve as Ontario’s premier. … Wynne joins five other women serving as premiers from Nunavut to Newfoundland, governing more than 80% of Canadians. It’s a remarkable and long overdue makeover in national politics.” Point to Kate Heartfield. The Star urges Wynne to get to work convincing Canadians to “give her party another look” — we just did; it’s still awful — lest we wind up with Tim Hudak and his Tories, who are “further right than even Mike Harris.”

It’s a remarkable and long overdue makeover in national politics

Anyhoo, now that the race is over, all seem to agree that Wynne’s sexuality is (in Coyne’s words) “the least of her worries.” Quite apart from anything else, L. Ian MacDonaldnotes in the Citizen, she’s … (whisper it) from Toronto.

Mia Rabson, writing in the Winnipeg Free Press, cautions people who want to see more women in politics against applauding the fact that we have yet another female premier. Because as every good activist Canadian knows, admitting partial victory constitutes defeat.

“For someone who campaigned as a ‘social justice’ candidate, it will not be easy to say no” to teachers, universities and cities, the Globe‘s editorialists worry. But say no she must. “Wynne’s Liberals would be wise to produce an economic statement, or perhaps a new budget, sooner rather than later,” they argue. “There are plenty of other issues that she will want to take on, but they all pale next to the need to restrain and reduce spending.” The thing the Post‘s editorialists want sooner rather than later is an election. Same goes for the Sun Media editorialists. The time of reckoning for what the Star‘s Thomas Walkom calls “terminal incompetence” in “crucial areas”is at hand.

The Globe‘s Adam Radwanski argues that Wynne will need to focus on policies that sound social justice-y but that can plausibly “benefit the provincial coffers” in the longer term as well: helping low-income Ontarians move up the ladder, for example, or widening prescription drug coverage. But she hasn’t much time to find them, or to do anything else since — to her credit — she will soon un-prorogue the legislature. It will be especially interesting to watch how she handles the scandalous gas plant cancellations, as Radwanski says. Will she be “willing to give the Opposition [a] pound of flesh,” and throw some McGuinty-ites under the bus?

Let’s think big“If the NDP had 40 seats and [leader Tom] Mulcair was trying to do what he’s doing now” — i.e., driving ever harder to the retail political centre — “there would already be meetings of New Democrats trying to figure out how to stop him,” Paul Wells observes on his Maclean’s blog. “I’m surprised the Conservatives haven’t yet tried to drive a wedge between Mulcair and the party he joined less than six years ago.” Then again, with Justin Trudeau doing well in the polls and not embarrassing himself on the leadership campaign trail, Wells says “the Conservatives cannot yet be sure they want the NDP in serious trouble.” That the opposition vote continues to be split is key to their good fortune.

Postmedia’s Andrew Coyne restates his case to Canada’s progressive-party partisans that first-past-the-post stands firmly athwart their return or ascension to power (as the case may be), and reiterates his proposal for a “one-time electoral pact. Party riding associations would agree to run a single candidate against the Conservatives, on a platform with essentially one plank: electoral reform. Were they to win they would govern just long enough to reform the electoral system, then dissolve Parliament and call fresh elections.”

It is a truly sickening prospect to imagine, once again, these two self-interested parties allowing a Harper minority to continue its destruction of the country

Murray Dobbin agrees wholeheartedly, which isn’t often a promising sign — but this is a pretty good pitch to New Democrats: Please, please abandon all hope of governing Canada, he implores in The Tyee. The Conservatives are too rich and too nasty; “the 30 new House of Commons seats are almost all in suburban Canada,” where the Dippers can’t hope to win; and the more the party moves to the centre, the more they’ll re-invigorate the Liberals. “It is a truly sickening prospect to imagine, once again, these two self-interested parties allowing a Harper minority to continue its destruction of the country because they haven’t got the integrity or the guts to put the country first,” Dobbin argues. Even if you think all this country-destroying talk is silly, it’s not like Dobbin’s making it up. That stuff comes from Liberals and New Democrats too. Surely nothing undermines their doomsaying rhetoric more than their steadfast refusal to cooperate while Harper ostensibly continues destroying everything we hold dear.

Aaron Wherry of Maclean’s objects to the idea that defeating the Conservatives is impossible without adopting Plan Coyne. “The NDP was ahead of the Conservatives [in polls] and in the mid-30s a year ago and the Liberals were ahead of the Conservatives and in the mid-30s in 2009,” he notes. “If the threshold for a majority government is around 39%, the possibility of an NDP or Liberal majority can’t be entirely dismissed” — and even less so a minority government, which could govern as a coalition with other parties. (Coyne argues that “the parties’ interests, loyalties, and ideologies are too divergent.” But come on. Mostly their common interest is power.) Furthermore, for reasons Wherry articulates well — most voters aren’t a 10th as obsessed with electoral reform as Coyne is, and it would take ages to change the voting system — he believes the idea is fundamentally “crazy.”

Talking of Big Crazy Ideas, Gordon Gibson, writing in the Vancouver Sun, suggests we might restore some “political balance … to a society that is increasingly fixated upon aging boomers” by giving parents a vote in trust for each of their children until they turn 18. (Presumably this would also prioritize longer-term thinking in our legislatures.) This seems even less likely to occur than Plan Coyne — and Gibson frames it as a strategy for struggling Premier Christy Clark, which is weird and irrelevant — but it’s a very interesting idea on its face. (That said, we will lead the March of Childless Curmudgeons on Parliament Hill. “No Carbon Tax! We’ll be dead by the time it matters!”)

Duly notedThe Globe‘s Doug Saunders explains why children of immigrants are increasingly rejecting the term “multiculturalism.” It’s not diversity itself they have a problem with, he explains, but the whole notion of official “culturalisms.” “Imagine the creation of a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant policy, with celebrations organized by the WASP Council of Canada — whose leaders were typically older men from the Church of England — and everything I read about me was written through the lens of such councils and their spokespeople,” Saunders writes, and perhaps you’ll begin to see the problem.

And the Globe‘s editorialists ask whether the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Colton Orr has had too many concussions to be given the choice to keep playing. You might think salaried opinion-makers would have an answer. Alas not.

In the wake of a Grammy Awards ceremony that disappointed many, from Kanye West to the masses on Twitter lamenting the state of pop music, a historical perspective is key. Few are better poised to offer one than Andy Kim.